Ravioli on a Snowy Day

Today is our third snow day in Homer, GA. School has been cancelled for both Chris and I for three days and we have enjoyed our time immensely. 

 Monday we went over to a friends house and played in the snow, ate chili, and made snow ice cream. Last night we had friends over to our house for dinner. My parents got me a really cool pasta maker for Christmas and I have been itching to use it. We decided to make ravioli from scratch! 

Here we are making the dough, cutting veggies for salad, and grating cheese. My significant other is the one in the middle. He is pretty cute, huh. :)

We divided the dough into quarters and rolled it out just a bit to get it flat. Then we rolled it through the pasta machine on its largest setting. Each time we rolled it through we set it a size smaller until it was as thin as we wanted. We set it on a floured surface so it wouldn't stick while we rolled out the rest. Our friend Clint is on the left holding the rolled pasta. John is manning the hand crank while Katie is feeding in the dough. I think they made a great team!

We made a basic pasta dough with  flour, eggs, salt and water for everyone else. But, I am trying to stay away from gluten, so I made a gluten free pasta for myself. I found the recipe for Gluten Free Millet Pasta at Real Sustenance. It is made out of millet and tapioca flours. I think it turned out fantastic. It is easy to roll, smooth, and has the same texture as regular wheat pasta. 

We had a bunch of different fillings to choose from. Sauteed mushrooms, spinach, onions, cheese, bacon, beef and pepperoni for the meat lovers. I filled mine with vegetables and a little bit of the beef. 

My dough sat a little too long before I made the ravioli, so they fell apart a little. But, that definitely didn't deter me from making a plateful. We went one at a time gingerly placing our ravioli masterpieces into a pot of boiling water. It took about six minutes per batch.

I pulled my batch out of the water and smothered them with some marinara sauce that we also made from scratch.

It was such a lovely meal. Fabulous people and fabulous food are always a good combination.

I had some leftover pasta dough from last night, so I made spaghetti noodles for lunch today. I was  amazed again at how easy they are to roll out. I let Chris taste, and he said it was good and tasted just like regular noodles. I love it when there are things that he likes that we can both eat. I plan on making this gluten free pasta for dinner again really soon. 

What kind of pasta do you like best? 

P.S. School is going great! I am enjoying all my classes. I am actually sad that we have had so many snow days because I like school so much. 

P.S.S. My Zumba training went great as well. As of 6PM on Sunday evening I became an official certified Zumba instructor. I enjoy the high energy, latin dance, and party like atmosphere of a Zumba class. I am working on practicing my moves, and figuring out how to choreograph and put together a workout. I will let you know when I have my first class. I am sure I will nervous out of my mind. But in the great words of our Zumba trainer "to be a great teacher you have to OWN IT and you have to BRING IT". I am planning on taking that advice to heart and really put myself out there. Even if it is going to be really scary.